Virtual currency is a digital representation of value that is used to acquire goods or services on digital platforms. Often, the virtual currency is used by digital merchants as a strategy to optimize user acquisition, user conversion and user retention. For example, just like air miles for a mileage program can be used to attract and retain a customer or discount coupons can be used to acquire a new user, the free and/or paid virtual currency points can be used to entice users to play games. In some cases, users may interact with the merchant via a user device including a local wallet that stores a virtual currency balance of the user. As users increasingly use devices (e.g. as mobile phones, desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets, etc.) to engage with the merchant, the synchronization of the local wallet balance and activities across these devices becomes a challenge.
There are a number of problems relating to the use of devices associated with a same user account. For example, a user plays a game online on a desktop or a network-connected console at home, and the user has 1000 points in a user account to play the game. The user then goes offline and continues to play the game with the available balance on a mobile phone of the user. All the 1000 points balance was used up on the mobile phone. But since the usage was in offline mode, the balance and activities are not synchronized with the backend server providing the service (e.g. the game) and storing the user account with 1000 points. The user then comes back online, without synchronizing the activities on the user devices (e.g. the desktop or the network-connected console, and the mobile phone), starts to play the game online again, e.g. when the user device is connected to the backend server via a network connection. The backend server, without realizing the additional offline activities, mistakenly allows the user to continue to use the 1000 points balance originally recorded before the user went offline. Accordingly, the backend server unintentionally allows the same 1000 points balance to be used multiple times across multiple devices causing an overdraft problem and resulting in revenue loss for the service provider (e.g. the backend server).
Embodiments of the present invention solve these problems and other problems, individually and collectively.